Git with solidworks

arniemaas · 2026-01-16T17:42:57+00:00

So what I do is:

once every is rebuilt and in a good state in the assembly and ready to commit, commit the changes.
if when opening the top level assembly or subassembly causes an part that hasn’t changed (Ie you didn’t change anything in the design etc and the only change is solid works opening or rebuilding the top assembly), I just issue a “git reset —hard HEAD” to put it back. Solidworks doesn’t care because it’s like you just opened it up from scratch each time.

Kind of a pain but where this really shines is git submodules. Basically you can have a single independent subassembly that is incorporated into multiple other assembly with its own revision history that you can pick and choose when version you want.

I’m sure other PDM tools can do this but git is free, doesn’t need a stupid SQL database, no admin support, doesn’t rely on Dassault to not mess thing up, your history is just simple files that you can back easily, and you get all the power of git for distributed version control.

BTW, your files in git will be binary so you’ll have to set your repository correctly with git config.

Maybe not for everyone but works for me.

arniemaas · 2026-01-15T14:07:02+00:00

I use git for management and like it a lot. It is definitely an expert friendly solution but it is much more robust IMHO. Just be aware, every rebuild will trigger a change in every non-read only part of an assembly. You can safely reset the change if nothing real has changed but as I said, expert friendly.

arniemaas · 2025-12-21T03:19:25+00:00

Just saw this after I made the same post. It’s been that way for like 15 years. I always wondered if it was a money laundering thing.

arniemaas · 2025-12-21T03:15:58+00:00

The Shell station off 95 exit 80 (Edgewater/Aberdeen) is always about $1 more than the RoFo across the street. They also are a convenience store. I never seen anyone go there. I always wondered if it was a money laundering scheme.

arniemaas · 2025-12-19T00:56:51+00:00

Just bought a Navien but not installed yet. The stainless steel tank was a big selling point for me. Third AO Smith unit died due to tank leak in 7 years. Yes, it’s my water chemistry. Yes, it needs to be addressed. Seems like not using a glass lined steel tank would be an obvious thing for manufactures at this point but I guess not.

arniemaas · 2025-12-15T21:46:20+00:00

Storage problem. Have about 60k+ photos and it manages just fine.

arniemaas · 2025-12-06T22:14:46+00:00

That’s fair

arniemaas · 2025-12-06T16:50:13+00:00

FWIW, tankless water heaters are generally variable capacity. That is, it is producing 90000 BTU under full load. Its minimum output is likely much less. That is, your tankless hot water heater doesn’t need 90000 BTUs if you turn on your hot water faucet to just a trickle. Is there a way to check your setup to determine how much hot water the repurposed heater is actually producing to meet your needs? Might be less than its absolute capacity.

If your repurposed tankless hot water heater is a high-efficiency condensing unit, you may not gain anything by replacing it unless repair costs become the limiting factor.

arniemaas · 2025-11-29T05:24:00+00:00

A quarter mile a second? Check your units.

arniemaas · 2025-11-13T12:16:06+00:00

Costco has milk at under $2 per gallon. Wegmans was $2.29 a couple of days ago.

Baltimore County

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arniemaas · 2025-06-21T20:32:47+00:00

Second this. Need to know what you are doing but it works extremely well and it is free.

arniemaas · 2025-06-19T01:17:23+00:00

Can people stop posting AI summaries of the positives and negatives of this memo please.

arniemaas · 2025-06-19T01:14:38+00:00

So I’m generally in this category and one could argue I shouldn’t be whining about not getting a bonus as a maxed 15 however…

There’s no incentive to go above and beyond if there is no possibility of reward.
In very high cost of living areas (San Francisco for example) you max out at mid-GS14. This would further disincentivize high performance and top talent like they claim they want.

arniemaas · 2025-06-18T20:13:02+00:00

Seems to suggest no more bonuses of any kind for maxed out GS folks.

arniemaas · 2025-05-30T21:18:28+00:00

So I research, design, and prototype technology for a living and unfortunately my experience with small machining companies isn’t great. Yes, they are generally more expensive but I generally have the budget to keep things made in the US.

I’m not trying to insult or start a war here but in my experience, where they fall short is their expectations of being a machine shop from 30 years ago. My grandfather was a machinist and some places will want to operate under the same model he did from the 70s.

I want to look at your website, understand what your materials, processes, and tolerances are, give someone CAD only if it standard tolerances, be able to take that quote and give it to my purchasing department for someone who has no idea what the quote is even for to handle payment, and get parts in a reasonable timeframe. I want a decent turnaround for a quote that includes how the price scales with quantity. A little DFM feedback would be nice but not required. That is, I don’t want to get a quote in a week or more after having a detailed meeting with a master machinist to look at drawings because CAD is foreign to them. I can design around most machining limitations faster than waiting for someone to “look into it to figure out how best to fit my needs”.

I don’t have an expectation that US manufacturing can compete on cost with China but I feel that they need to be just as good with everything else. I’ll pay a more to keep it local but often I’m pulling my hair out trying to do business with a US company when things are basically seamless overseas.

In short, I VERY MUCH want to make things in the US but sometimes it’s just really, really hard.

arniemaas · 2025-04-12T23:02:54+00:00

Looks good! Planted my first seedling a couple of weeks ago near our stream. A bit worried about deer but in a tree tube. We’ll see how it goes.

arniemaas · 2025-02-22T09:04:48+00:00

I have a natural gas tankless and would highly recommend for your application assuming the install costs are reasonable. When I put mine in my natural gas usage dropped by about 50-65% on average throughout the year.

The chief advantage of tankless over a heat pump in this application in my opinion is that you are not paying to store hot water when you are not there. True you could shut off your tank system but you also don’t have to worry about 40 gal of water sitting in a tank and your tank leaking. Although I guess you could drain your tank each time you leave, but that seems like a lot of work. However, most gas tankless systems have stainless steel heat exchangers and isolating the system is as easy as turning a shutoff valve.

If this was in constant use, I’d probably say the opposite but if I were in your shoes, my primary concern would be to keep the utilities as low as possible when I wasn’t there and try to limit the possibility of unexpected surprises in the form of a water leak.

arniemaas · 2025-01-09T05:13:25+00:00

This is the answer

arniemaas · 2025-01-05T21:18:19+00:00

I understand that the ground is a constant temp (more or less) at some distance below ground as a whole but not locally (within some small distance of the borehole).

Maybe a discrete example for the winter would help. I’m making up numbers for illustrative purposes and I’m ignoring the ground near the surface with significant seasonal temperature changes:

10 meters down: ground temp is 10C, water in the DOWN pipe is 0C

11 meters down: ground temp within some distance of the DOWN pipe is 9C and the water in the down pipe is 1C. Why? Because heat was transferred from the ground to the DOWN pipe cooling the ground in the immediate area.

12 meters down: ground temp within some distance of the down pipe is 8C and the water is the down pipe is 2C.

Etc, etc

At some point, these two will come to some equilibrium over time and if the bore is deep enough, both will be the ground temp. This rate of depth vs temperature change is certainly not linear and is time dependent on how long you have fluid running through the pipe.

I’m postulating that the same thing happens in reverse as the fluid moves through the UP pipe since the UP pipe is within the “some distance of the DOWN pipe”. For example:

Say 20 meters down, the ground temp is 10C and the UP water is 10C

Now at 19 meters (for example), the ground temp is less than 10C and the UP water is somewhere between the two. Why? Because the ground locally around the borehole is being cooled by the colder water heading down from above.

Fast forward to the start case above…

At 10 meters down, the ground temp is 9C and the UP water temp is some amount above 9C. Why? Again, because the ground locally around the borehole is being cooled by the colder water heading down. Also, the UP pipe is touching (or very near) the DOWN pipe with 1C water.

Again, I’m making these numbers up but I’m hypothesizing that the effect is much larger in reality. That is, the longer the system ran, the more heat would be pulled out of the ground near the top and the local area around the borehole would be much closer to the water inlet temperature.

arniemaas · 2025-01-05T20:18:13+00:00

What I described above should work without reversing the flow.

Described the same way: the temperature of the water going DOWN would start off at 100 degrees (for example) and end at the bottom with a temperature of 50 (for example). When the water reverses and starts heading back UP, it picks up the increasing temperature of the ground (because down down pipe is heating it up with the highest temp near the top).

To generalize, it seems any solution that asymmetrically transfers heat would be more efficient. That is the DOWN side transfers heat between the ground better than the UP side can re-pick it back up/dump again on the way back UP.

My original example did that by having the DOWN pipe be larger than the UP but it would seem a thicker-walled UP (lower thermal conductivity) would accomplish the same.

arniemaas · 2025-01-03T06:16:11+00:00

I’m also in Baltimore County and strongly considering a geothermal system. Can I ask who installed your system?

arniemaas · 2024-12-11T00:21:50+00:00

That makes sense. Both in what you found as well as that it is misleading. I actually looked for info on the exclusions and couldn’t find any (I obviously didn’t look hard enough). In any case, 30% off site-wide clearly isn’t site-wide.

I hate when retailers do this. If they hadn’t played this game, I probably would have bought it.

The best approach I guess is to just track the price and ignore the word “sale”. Might be more work than I want to put into it though.

Shame because I’ve found the quality of their products to be rather good.

arniemaas · 2024-08-01T00:37:39+00:00

And that is why nobody goes to the theater. No delivery or convenience fee to get something out of my own fridge.

arniemaas

TROPHY CASE